About This Project

I’ve called this one ‘Masquerade’.

Why? Well I found this online, picture of a landscape. Despite being a small file it was nonetheless, visually interesting and unconventional. It depicted a terrestrial forest of intertwined trees which I thought could equally masquerade as an aquatic, underwater landscape.

Which prompted the search for fish!

At first I tried introducing tropical fish into the scenario. But they simply didn’t do it for me.

Then I stumbled on koi carp.

And where do you find these exotic creatures? Japan.

So, I flew to Tokyo, then journeyed a further 5 hours by train to “the city of water,” Shimabara, Nagasaki.

It took a deal of financial skulduggery, verbal shenanigans and an interpreter to persuade the local Koi Farm to agree to my photographing their fish, but eventually they did!

And this is the result – ‘Masquerade.’

A masquerade is a pretence, a deception, an illusion, a subterfuge where nothing is quite what it seems.

Which is the maxim of this painting where the truth is simply a lie in disguise.